Blogging and Me

Blogging has affected my life in more ways than I have imagined. It has played important roles in the way I was living particular chapters of my life. Let me tell you how…

During the past 4 years of my life, blogging became a venue for…

Freeing My Thoughts. I discovered blogging back in College -specifically in 2006. I first knew about it in the once most popular social networking site in the Philippines, Friendster. I have no idea then what the word “blog” means and how to actually create one. I googled it out and I understood that it’s simply an online journal.

Since then, I used it the way I understood what it is. I immediately set up a blog using Friendster’s user-friendly interface. At first, I thought it was hard but I was wrong. It was as simple as creating an email. It is just intimidating at first because of the “this-one-is-new-I-don’t-know-how-to-do-this “idea. But I tell you, you can easily learn it.

Yup… It was just timely since I also needed a venue to vent out my thoughts and feelings because I was away from my family for school – I don’t have anyone but myself to share them to. I was a probinsyano submerged in a whole new environment of urban living. That’s the reason why I started blogging when I can have time after school, especially when I felt like I needed to get some things out of my system and when I have enough money for I only used to rent a computer in a café near my “boarding house” before.

Most of the time I blogged about school stuff – basically just commenting on a professor’s mustache, telling how I was feeling on a particular subject, describing how my day at school was, etc. I also blogged some family stuff: my thoughts on my Tito’s death, how I was missing home, some family problems and similar topics. I also wrote on personal stuff like how awful the smell of my laundry was, my longing for someone, my wishes on my birthday and the likes. (Yeah… I like the word “stuff”… :D)

I would say that it helped me a lot since I was able to ventilate my feelings. It was a good feeling of letting them all out – may it be a good feeling or thought or a bad one.It took me back to my sanity. :D

Sharing My Self. The whole idea of just freeing my thoughts changed when people started commenting on my posts. I realized that my network of friends and their friends in the social networking site were actually able to read my blog. They started airing their thoughts, gave me advices as well and exchanged ideas with me.

Yes, the entire thing suddenly got interactive. I thought I was just writing a diary that no one else reads. But yeah, I was wrong again. (Haha.)

I also got a little embarrassed somehow since some of the posts I made were too personal and too funny to share. I just said to myself, “It’s just my opinion, eh!” (laughter). Another thing that I was ashamed of was my grammar. I admit that I don’t have much words stored in my vocabulary and my English is faulty. I just then said, “Who cares. It’s my blog!” (But everyone gets to read it, Noypi! lol).

Yeah, during this phase of my blogging experience, I was able to communicate and share myself with others. I made friends with strangers and my old friends knew me better. (Isn’t that great? :D)

Providing Information and consequently Earning. In January 2009, while waiting for the results of a board exam that I took, I thought of creating a webpage that would provide information about the upcoming results. I put up a blog at Blogger.com dedicated for that purpose. While I was doing this though, I was already active on finding ways to earn and I thought of “online”. Indeed, there are ways to make money on the internet and I was amazed to find out that one of them is through blogging.

Yeah, all the time that I was posting on my blog, I never thought that I could have been more fruitful if I only knew that I can also earn from the thing that was giving so much benefits on me, beforehand. All I had to do was to figure out how it actually works.

And so, I read lots of online articles about earning through blogging. I applied what I learned but it wasn’t easy. I thought I would get instant results but my first month only gave me $10. And take note, so much hardwork has been exhausted to earn that amount in a month.

Yes I gave up learning how to earn through blogging. I focused on some other things although I posted once in a while when I felt like to. I also got an offline job that was taking so much of my time.

Until late September last year, when I came a across this advertising company which I got interested on… What’s good about it is that I get to interact with the community of publishers which mostly are bloggers. I started learning their ways and more other ways on how to improve my blog and my rankings.

I re-applied what I previously learned and added the new info I got. Lucky enough, I got my first Adsense payment that month. Another advertising company also paid me for the first time the same month. I focused on providing information and amazingly, it gave me some income.

My Blogging Plans and Goals for 2011.

I still consider blogging as a hobby that takes my stresses out and makes me a social being. But the fact that I could also earn while having those benefits, I thought, “Why not make the most of it and earn more?”:D

So far, I am receiving my monthly Adsense payment but it is too little for me though. I have to do a lot of things still. It’s a brand new year and so let me share to you my blogging plans and goals for 2011.

1.Improve My Stats. I am hoping for better stats this year - from the pageranks and alexa ranks of my blogs, up to their daily traffic. There is only one way to do this – I need to post as much quality content as possible.

My readings told me that “content is the king” and I have to agree with that. It is the most effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization) technique, I believe. So I better work my ass off and keep writing.

Aside from my limited vocabulary, being lazy has always been my problem. I hope I could win more battles against laziness this year. I need to be more dedicated and perhaps more inspired as well to do so. (Emo much? Haha.)

2. Get a Domain. I am realizing this in 2011. Yeah, I never had a domain since I thought it is expensive and I don’t have much savings to pay for it. I just realized a few months ago that it is affordable after all.

Having one I believe is an important aspect of SEO and would make me free from the fear that Blogger/Blogspot may delete my blogs hosted to them at anytime as what other bloggers experienced. And so I am willing to spend some of my savings and eager to learn setting up domains and backpacking to other hosts.

Well, I am also hopeful that writing this post would actually make me have one. (You’ll know why at the end of this post… :D)

3. Develop my Writing Skills. I am no writer and I don’t have much background on journalism either. Although blogging in its sense is just free-form writing, I think one must follow basic journalism principles if he/she intends to create a blog that deals with information. Since I am also relaying info through my blogs, I think I have to ponder more on those principles and maybe read news articles also so that I could have a grasp on how to write those.

To address my grammar and vocabulary issues I guess I have to spend more time in reading books and magazines also.

4. Be More Creative. I have found out that being creative is an important aspect of one’s “blogging for money endeavor”. From making a blog header to its layout and widgets, one has to show his/her creative side. He/She also has to demonstrate creativity on his/her attack on SEO. I am hopeful that I could exhibit this side of me more this year.

5.Hold a Blogversary Giveaway. One sign that a blogger is successful or contented on his/her blogging venture is when he/she already holds a giveaway. I hope that by mid-September which will be my blogging re-birth 1st anniversary, I could already facilitate a giveaway of my own. (Wish me luck! :D)

You may wonder why I suddenly created a post like this. Oh well, I am actually joining Coolbuster.net ExtraBloganza Contest. The contest is made possible by Coolbuster.net’s generous sponsors below: